


walking alone.

by katarama



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Allison, Child Abuse, College, Depression, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Future Fic, Mental Health Issues, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-27 01:57:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6265129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katarama/pseuds/katarama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott tries his hardest not to dwell on the negatives.  He tries his best to look at where he is and be happy, because there’s so much good.  His mom and and his pack, Stiles and Stiles’ dad are all safe and healthy.  He’s going to be graduating in the spring from college, and he’s enjoyed his class work and his major.  He has a plan for after graduation, for vet school, and it isn’t a plan that’s going to pull him away from his couple.  </p><p>Sometimes, though, the negatives catch up with him, and he needs his some help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	walking alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: this fic has references to suicide (Allison's mother), child abuse/emotional abuse (Allison's parents), discussion of depression (Scott, similar to what he experiences in 5B), and about coping.

Sometimes Scott thinks back to the kid he used to be and wonders what he would think if he met himself as he is now.

There are a lot of things that eighth grade, high school freshman Scott would be awed about.  Scott’s old, worn letterman jacket with his high school varsity lacrosse letters, the one that Allison steals to wear around the apartment when it’s chilly.  Scott’s full ride to U.C. Davis that he worked his ass off for, Scott’s collection of letters he mailed home to his mom saying he made dean’s list every semester so far.  Scott’s relationships.  Relationship, really.  He and Allison and Lydia are one unit, even though he has strong, unique bonds with both of them, individually.  They’ve been one unit since junior year of high school, and they date like it.  Eighth grade Scott never could have predicted that that was even something he would come across, polyamory, let alone that he would end up with two amazing girlfriends.  

Scott tries his hardest not to dwell on the negatives.  He tries his best to look at where he is and be happy, because there’s so much good.  His mom and and his pack, Stiles and Stiles’ dad are all safe and healthy.  He’s going to be graduating in the spring from college, and he’s enjoyed his class work and his major.  He has a plan for after graduation, for vet school, and it isn’t a plan that’s going to pull him away from his couple.  

Allison and Lydia make him happy, and the fact that they’re dating Jackson isn’t even as much of a negative as Scott could have expected it to be.  Sure, it’s weird, sometimes, living in the same apartment as Jackson.  Scott knows way more about sex with Jackson than he ever needed to know.  He knows that Jackson actually irons his t-shirts, and that Jackson gets so tired and petty he’s pretty much impossible to interact with after midnight.  But it’s really not that bad, actually.  Jackson used to smell tangy and sour like jealousy, sometimes, early on.  He’s sure that Jackson used to be able to smell it on him, too.  But they’ve worked it out.  They’ve come to terms with things, settled into something comfortable.  They don’t actually interact all that much, considering they live in the same apartment, but they’re both okay with that.

Sometimes, though, the negatives catch up with Scott.  

They catch up with all four of them.  It’s hard not to go through what a single one of them went through and come out totally unscathed.  There are days when Lydia’s hands tremble when she takes off her blouses at the end of the day, when she sees the scars left by Peter.  Any of the scars taking up space on her body, really.  There are far too many.  Too many injuries they couldn’t protect her from, that she feels frustrated she couldn’t even protect herself from.  Too many years when she knew nothing, nothing about the circumstances going on around her, nothing about her own power and capabilities.  She still has days when she gets on the phone and locks herself in her room for hours, comes out of the room with her face red and blotchy, her eyes wet.  Her room is soundproofed, for privacy, but they know it’s Meredith she’s talking to, or Jordan.  Sometimes Scott suspects that it’s only really them connecting her back to herself, to life, when her power connects her so innately with death.

Them and Allison.

Even before Lydia brought Allison back to the dead, when Scott was dating her and when they were Just Friends again, she had quiet moments.  Days when she couldn’t look at the Argent pendant, like the pressure of it around her neck alone was too heavy for one person.  It had dragged down her mother, the strongest person Allison knew, had pledged her to fear and to death.  It was twisted by Kate, shaped by Gerard, turned into something ugly, killing first and asking questions later, if at all.  Allison talks, sometimes, about training with them, about working with them.  Sometimes Scott wishes she didn’t.  He can tell from the way she talks that she knows it was too much, even though she maintains the front, the ‘they were just trying to make me strong’.  

They were taking a teenage girl and trying to twist her into something hard, something that could kill for them.  Scott has grown to accept necessary evils as a part of their life, and he knows even being in his life, in her family’s life put Allison at risk.  Knowing how to protect herself is central to her life.  But sometimes watching herself pressure herself into a corner, watching herself strain herself, watching her carry the weight of the world on her shoulders because they told her it was her responsibility when she was seventeen and terrified, manipulating her with her own mother’s death… Scott is pretty sure there were better options available.

The way Jackson and Lydia came back into each other, finding solace in being able to talk to someone else who had their autonomy removed, their bodies controlled without their consent, Allison and Scott find solace in having someone else who understands what it’s like to be alive again after not being alive.  Allison was dead much longer than Scott, was in a place where she wasn’t supposed to be brought back, where her soul had found peace in death.  Scott had moments, compared to her, before he was dragged back into his body.  But he’s the only one who understands the sensation at all, can identify with the abstractness of it all, the way she struggles to put any of it to words.  

Jackson has never put any of what he’s been through to words, at least, never to Scott.  He’s further along in the process of Dealing than they are.  He made the call that none of them could, the decision to get out of Beacon Hills and to take time for himself.  Scott heard rumors about a self-destructive spiral, the first few months in London.  Scott would sometimes get worried texts about it from Lydia, international phone calls he made at what was 4 AM for him, his speech so slurred she could barely make out a word.  But Jackson started therapy and stuck with it, and he’s in a better place now, outwardly, at least, than when Scott knew him before.  He tells Allison and Lydia he loves them, and it doesn’t look like or sound like he’s pulling teeth to say it.  

As for Scott, things are still rough.

Maybe it’s the fact that he tries to push away some of the hard stuff rather than dealing with it.  Maybe it’s the fact that there’s already so much stress in his life, and so when he’s down, it makes everything worse, the insomnia and the heaviness in his limbs, the way he sometimes kind of checks out and doesn’t always realize it until later.  He knows he should talk about things, the way the others do, but it’s hard.  They would be the people he could talk to most easily, and they already have their own burdens to carry, and he doesn’t want to drag them down with his.  He can’t go to a school therapist so easily: if he started talking about being a werewolf, that might not go over too well.  He’s considered talking to Marin, but he has never taken that step.  He doesn’t know if he can, if that’s something he’s strong enough to do.  

Some days he’s fine.  But when he’s not fine, it’s a lot all at once, and if he didn’t have his responsibilities to focus on, and a long history of having to pull through even the worst circumstances to help other people, he isn’t sure he’d be able to do anything on those days.

He knows sometimes Allison and Lydia shoot each other worried looks when they think he doesn’t see.  He knows that Stiles smells of concern along with his usual powderkeg of emotions.  He knows his mom gets sad around the mouth, because Scott’s calls are short and quick, more to reassure her than anything.  He wants to tell them he’s fine.  He does tell them he’s fine, when things dip for them, too, when they need his support and his hugs and his listening skills.  Putting others first is always easier than dealing.

And Scott tries.  He tries to convince himself things are okay, and that he is putting up a convincing front.  It doesn’t occur to him that the people that are the very closest to him know better than that.

The most surprising thing of all is that it’s Jackson that is the one who finally brings it up.

It’s morning, and Scott is trudging through reviewing his notes for class.  He wants to crawl back into bed and sleep through all of his classes, but he can’t.  It’s too close to the end of the semester, and every single class period feels like it’s ramping up.

Allison and Lydia are both still asleep, so he’s camped out in the kitchen with his notebooks, dragging his eyes over the page and trying to get it all to sink in.  Jackson comes back from the gym, and Scott almost doesn’t notice him until he sits down across from him at the table, thunking down a smoothie in front of Scott.

Scott’s gaze flickers from the dark pink drink up to Jackson, but Jackson’s face is blank.  Scott reaches out for it.  “Thank you?” he says, confused.  This isn’t the norm.  Usually, the two move around each other in the kitchen in relative silence, Jackson maybe leaving coffee in the coffeepot for Scott.

“You seemed like you needed it,” Jackson says.  Scott doesn’t know what to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything at all, taking a long sip from the smoothie.  It’s his favorite flavor, and he doesn’t ever remember telling Jackson that.

Scott expects Jackson to move, his drink delivered, or to pull out his phone.  Instead, Jackson just sits there.  It makes Scott vaguely uncomfortable, because the expression on Jackson’s face is almost identical to the one Stiles wears when he has an Important Conversation that he wants to start.  Scott can’t focus on his work when Jackson is there just looking at him, working himself up to talking.  He doesn’t know what could be wrong enough that Jackson would feel the need to mention something, and his brain spirals to the worst kinds of conversations imaginable the longer the silence stretches.

“Are you okay?” Scott finally blurts.  

“I’m fine,” Jackson says.  “But you’re not.”

Scott takes a very, very long sip of his smoothie, trying to keep calm.  Jackson’s tone was matter-of-fact, leaving not a lot of room for arguments, even though Scott’s brain is scrambling for excuses for why he’s wrong, or for less worrisome things that it could be.

Thankfully, Jackson doesn’t give him the chance to say anything.  “It’s okay to be selfish.”

“That’s the most Jackson advice I’ve ever heard,” Scott says weakly.  He’s trying to be funny, even though it isn’t, and he knows he’ll cringe later over that being the first thing out of his mouth.  Jackson doesn’t seem too upset about it, though.  Just… intense.  And intently focused on Scott.

“I made that joke the first time my first therapist told me that, too,” Jackson says.  “But he said it until I remembered it.  ‘Asking for help and letting other people help you isn’t selfish, and even if it were, it’s okay to be selfish’.”

“I’m fine,” Scott says.  “You guys have your stuff and I have mine, right?”

“No,” Jackson corrects him.  “You have your stuff and also the rest of the world’s stuff, and you get embarrassed and uncomfortable and guilty when you talk too much about your stuff, because you feel like you’re burdening the world, or some shit like that.  You feel like others deserve all of your time and you feel like you deserve none of theirs.”

It feels a little bit like being under a microscope, and Scott wants to bolt.  This isn’t a conversation he particularly expected to or wanted to have, especially with Jackson.  He must look like a deer in the headlights, because even Jackson’s expression softens some.

“You know I actually give a fuck about you, right?” he asks.  

“We don’t talk much,” Scott says.  “At all.  It’s mostly about class and pack stuff and movies and food.  And our couple.”

“You care about my mental health, still, don’t you?”

It’s an easy question.  Jackson knows it is.  “Of course I do.”

“I care about yours,” Jackson says firmly.  “Allison and Lydia care about it more loudly than me, because they’re your girlfriends.  But the three of you are together, and I don’t think you’re gonna fuck that up.  I know _I’m_  not going to fuck me and Allison and Lydia up.  Which means we’re stuck together.  For a long time.  We don’t have to be best buddies, but you being self-sacrificing does worry me.  Talking about your feelings?  Actually helps.”

“Back in high school, it would feel backwards that you were the one telling me this,” Scott says.  

“Therapy,” Jackson says.  “It might be helpful for you, if you’re really all that worried about bothering us with your daily stuff.  If you need some names, I have them.  Or you could talk to me.  I wasn’t there for this shit, and I don’t have a big mouth.”

It’s a lot for that early in the morning.  It’s a lot for any time, really, but it’s especially a lot when Scott’s brain is still running slow and sluggish.  He needs just a little bit of time to process things.  His gut reaction of discomfort and embarrassment needs a few hours to fade so he can think more seriously about what Jackson is offering.  He suspects that Allison and Lydia would offer the same in a heartbeat, even though it still feels like asking too much, from any of them, and starting that conversation is intimidating.

“Can I get back to you tonight?” Scott asks.

“You can get back to me whenever,” Jackson says, “as long as you’re not just spiraling because you think you’re alone.  You have two girlfriends and a pack.”

Scott thanks Jackson, and he goes back to sipping at the smoothie.  Jackson seems to consider his job done, because he heads off to take a quick shower.  It gives Scott a lot to think about and a lot to sort through, stuff that Scott had mostly been intimidated by or putting off.

But Scott knows Jackson is right.  Scott knows he’s not alone.  Not anymore, not if he doesn’t want to be.  

And maybe, he thinks, it’s time to let other people help him feel that way.

**Author's Note:**

> On tumblr [here](http://sleepy-skittles.tumblr.com).


End file.
